Andre Norton's YA Novels

When I worked at a bookstore (the now defunct Walden Books), I had a co-worker that loved Andre Norton. I'd never read any of her books throughout High School, although I was certainly familiar with her name. I wish now that I did.

Norton wrote largely for what we now call the YA audience: teenagers, with fantastical adventures throughout numerous worlds and times. She was also largely ignored or dismissed for writing 'children's literature', which is a shame, because it's likely that she had as great an influence on the shape of the modern genre as Robert Heinlein, who's Juvenile novels attracted millions of fans to new worlds. Norton was the same, and influenced countless readers and writers for decades. It's fitting that the major SF award for YA fiction is titled The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Go read Andre Norton's YA novels over on Kirkus Reviews. Sources:

• Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss contends here that Norton was part of a growing movement in science fiction in the 1950s, along with a small core of other authors.
• Who Wrote That? Andre Norton By John Bankston. This book designed for YA readers seems to be the only Norton biography on the market right now. I used the chronology to help structure this post.
• Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow, edited by Reginald Bretnor. Anne McCaffrey has an essay in this book that mentions Andre Norton briefly.
• The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction, Paul Allen Carter. Carter talks about Norton very briefly here in a larger context within the genre.
• Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, by James Gunn. Norton has a couple of mentions here, talking about her work in the 1950s.
• Science Fiction after 1900, Brooks Landon. Landon's book is a great look, and he talks about Norton a couple of times in this book regarding her influence in the genre.
• The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James. This book also mentions Norton sparingly, but does so within the context of SF, Women and the 1950s.
• The Faces of Science Fiction: Intimate Portraits of the Men and Women who Shape the way we look at the future, Patti Perret. Norton has a portrait in here, where she talks about science fiction as an entertainment medium.

Web:

• Andre Norton correspondence, literary and dollhouse, Cleveland Public Library. There's some interesting letters here that talk quite a bit about Norton's character and personality.
• Obituaries: Los Angles Times and The Guardian. Both were helpful, as they provided some good (although at times, inaccurate) details about her life.

L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Land of Oz

As I've been writing this column, I've realized that there's points where I have to move ahead and skip authors, or, after some reflection, research and writing, that I missed someone critical. Over the last couple of months, I've been realizing that not covering L. Frank Baum has been a drastic oversight, and that at the next available opportunity, I need to cover him and his wonderful world of Oz.

I defy you to find someone who doesn't know the story of The Wizard of Oz. It's an enormously popular story, so ingrained into our popular culture world that statements such as 'We're not in Kansas anymore' need no reference. Oz is on par with stories from Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley - we know what happens without even reading the works. As such, it's good to go back and take a look at their place in SF's canon, because they are very influential, and it's easy to see why: they're fantastic, eminently readable stories that hold up with their sense of wonder.

Recently, I attended ICFA down in Orlando Florida, where I had dinner with a couple of authors, notably Ted Chaing. We had gotten on the topic of robotics, and he mentioned that Tik Tok from Ozma of Oz could be considered one of the first robots in SF. It's certainly an early appearance of a robot, and with that in mind, it's interesting to see how much of Oz prefigured some of the modern SF genre.

Go read L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Land of Oz over on Kirkus Reviews.

The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin, Brian Attebery. There's an entire chapter on Oz here, and it's got some excellent background on the nature of Oz and how it relates to the fantasy canon. The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum. It's always good to go to the original source - this was helpful in picking out details about the story. Baum remains extremely readable. Ozma of Oz, L. Frank Baum. Available on Gutenberg, this was helpful for the quotes about Tik Tok. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum. I have a reprinted edition of the original, from Barnes and Noble (which I can't wait to read to my son), which has the original forward. Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum, by Michael O. Riley. This book is an in depth, exaustive look at Baum's Oz novels and his other works, presented in clear, chronological order with a good amount of detail. Teenage: The Prehistory of Youth Culture 1875-1945, Jon Savage. Savage devotes several pages to Baum and Oz, which provides some excellent context to the impact that Oz had on readers. When Dreams Came True, Jack Zipes. This book also has an entire chapter devoted to Oz, with story details and biographical information.

Online:

Baum, L. Frank: As usual, the SF Encyclopedia has a good entry on my subject and looks at the wider genre-context. NY Times Review: The original review of Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

SFWA and the 'Science Fiction Hall of Fame' Anthologies

I started reading SF when I was in High School, and was supported by the school's librarian, Sylvia Allen, who encouraged me to pick up new works. At one point, someone had donated a treasure trove of Science Fiction novels to the school, a lot of which they couldn't catalog, due to age and space. A lot of them went up for sale, and she let me have a crack at them early. One of the books in the pile was The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1, which contained a story from an author I'd been reading, Isaac Asimov, and a number of others. I took it home, and was immediately hooked.

A couple of years later, when I worked at the Brown Public Library in Northfield, I had struck up a friendship with an older patron who (if I remember correctly) had been connected to fandom in New York City. He recounted several stories of authors such as Walter Miller Jr. and a couple of others. At one point, I mentioned the anthology that I'd been re-reading, and he told me that there were two others, and ended up bringing them in for me to have. Later, I bought the re-released version of the first volume, so as to relieve my old copy of wear and tear that it desperately didn't need.

For years, I thought that the three books were the only ones. It wasn't until I started seeing the title pop up in my research that I started to look deeper into the anthology, and to my surprise, found that two others had been printed in the 1980s, but which had been largely forgotten.

The anthologies have a curious history, and never would have come about but for the creation of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and some of their financial troubles. For those interested in science fiction history, the focus of the books are a nice match: the first three volumes were explicitly put together with the idea of charting the evolution of the genre. While they're incomplete (two women in the entire book - I'm really sad that there wasn't a Moore Northwest Smith story in there, or anything by Francis Stevens) by modern standards, it's pretty much the entire Golden Age of SF in a single book. In and of themselves, they are a historical curiosity, and an interesting read all together - a lot of the stories still hold up nicely.

Go read SFWA and the 'Science Fiction Hall of Fame' Anthologies over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1, Robert Silverberg. Silverberg's introduction has a lot of detail about how this project came about, and it's worth a read into the work and background for this. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2A/B, Ben Bova. Bova's introduction also provides some good details on his entry. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 3, Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke's introduction here isn't all that useful, but it does show a pivot for the anthology: a focus now on Nebula winners, rather than historical works. What I found interesting here was also that it's the first book in the series not published by Doubleday. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 4, Terry Carr. As with Clarke's introduction, there's more an emphaisis on the Nebula designation rather than on the selection.

SFWA Bulletin, December 1967: I was able to get a scan of the original Bulletin that issued the call for stories.

SF Encyclopedia:

Damon Knight: Damon Knight's biography of the Futurians doesn't mention this, but the SFE3 entry provides some good details into this time of his life. SFWA: This has some good backstory on SFWA's formation. Nebula Award: Similarly, this provides some good background information.

ISFDB Entry - Science Fiction Hall of Fame: This was particularly helpful in figuring out publication dates and publishers.

Huge thanks to Former SFWA president Michael Capobianco and Robert Silverberg for their help with this one.

Edward Everett Hale's Brick Moon

I've got a bit of a bonus installment for my column on SF History. I've got a limited amount of space that I've got to work with for Kirkus, and as such, I've had to blow past a couple of things. Fortunately, with Jurassic London's new release of The Brick Moon by Edward Everett Hale, I've had the opportunity to circle back and write about this particular novel. The Brick Moon is the first science fiction story that uses the idea of an artificial satellite, and it's an excellent example of what science fiction is: extrapolation into the near future. In this instance the need for a navigational beacon in the skies. It's a cool premise, and in one fell swoop, Hale comes up with the idea for a satellite, communications satellite and space station. (Yes, Clarke came up with the idea as well. His invention is notable because it wasn't in SF, but a non-fiction speculation).

Read Edward Everett Hale's Brick Moon over on Pornokitsch. Here's the sources which I used:

• Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it, by Mike Ashley. Ashley has a nice chunk of text devoted to this book, and it provides some helpful context.
• The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint. There's a single mention in this book, but it's a juicy one that places it in a bit of context with similar works from around the same time in Arthur B. Evan's piece, 'Ninteenth-Century SF.)
• To A Distant Day, Chris Gainor. It's not often that I get to break out books on space history. This book is about the dawn of the rocket age, from the fantastic People's History of Spaceflight series. Hale gets a good mention here.
• Alternate Worlds, James Gunn. Gunn has a mention of The Brick Moon, with a little background.
• The Brick Moon, by Edward Everett Hale. This new edition from Jurassic London has an incredible historical essay on The Brick Moon, which helped provide some vital details to this piece from Richard Dunn and Marek Kukula.
• Explorers of the Infinite: Shapers of Science Fiction. Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz is someone I'm reluctant to use, and I'm realizing that much of the perception of SF and its history is really framed by him. There's an entire essay about Hale, and it provides some good information, but nothing hugely specific.
• The High Frontier, Gerard K. O'Neill. There's a single mention of Hale in this book, about habitats in space.
• Edward Everett Hale, Harvard Square Library. This is an excellent short biography that provides some good detail on Hale's early life.

I would also be remiss if I didn't put something in that Jurassic London's edition is now available.

Anne McCaffrey's Dragons

I've had a passing fascination with McCaffrey's books over the years, even as I never really dabbled in them. (I owned one book, Dragonflight, years ago.) I was always somewhat intimidated by the sheer size and scale of the series, and I was always more interested in SF than I was Fantasy (although now, I realize that that was a bit misguided.) Anne McCaffrey was always an author I was aware of: one of the female authors alongside the Asimovs, Herberts and Heinleins in my high school library.

Yet, in recent years, as I've been researching, I've become aware that McCaffrey has occupied an important role in the genre: she's an extremely successful female author, but she also writes in such a way (and is marketed as such) that she's an excellent gateway into the SF world for a huge range of readers.

Go read Anne McCaffrey's Dragons over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

• Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss has some excellent points about McCaffrey's early works in his book, although she's mentioned sparingly.
• Transformations: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1950-1970, Mike Ashley. Ashley provides some outstanding quotes and background into how McCaffrey got her start in the genre, and especially how she was aided by John W. Campbell Jr.
• Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1970-1980, Mike Ashley. This book follows up with Transformations, but likewise provides some good information on McCaffrey's work.
• Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction 1926-1965, Eric Davin. This was a particularly good source, providing some interesting background information that didn't appear anywhere else, but also helped my thinking with how McCaffrey got into writing in the first place, but how she viewed her stories.
• Survey of Science Fiction Literature, vol. 2, William Magill. There's an excellent review and overview of Dragonflight in this volume.
• Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams of Anne McCaffrey, Todd McCaffrey. This was a particularly helpful source, but very poorly laid out and written. It's jumbled, and jumps from point to point, making it difficult to locate the right information.
• The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint. This text had some good background information.
• ISFDB. As always, this is a particularly helpful site for figuring out when and where stories were published.

The Transformation of George R.R. Martin

I've been a fan of Game of Thrones since I first caught it a couple of years ago, and I've been impressed with the HBO series as I've continued to watch. When Season 1 hit, I pulled out my copies of A Song of Ice and Fire and started the first book, alternatively reading and watching the show. I've found the books to be a trial to get through, but I've ultimately enjoyed them.

I've found Martin's rise to real fame in the last couple of years to be an interesting thing to watch, and it's equally as interesting to look back and remember that he was a fairly prominent SF author throughout the 70s and 80s, and with this past weekend's release of Season 4, it's a good time to look back on his roots.

Go read The Transformation of George R.R. Martin over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

• Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, by Brian Aldiss: Aldiss notes Martin's role in the late 70s in magazine fiction here, and it's a helpful couple of pages contextually.
• Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1970-1980, by Mike Ashley. Like Aldiss above, Ashley provides some good contextual information on Martin's writing.
• The Heart of a Small Boy, George R.R. Martin: This is a cool autobiographical piece about Martin's upbringing.
• The Faces of Science Fiction: Intimate portraits of the men and women who shape the way we look at the future, by Patti Perret. This is a really cool book. It's portraits of a ton of major SF/F authors, and a little bit about their background, in their own words.
• Martin, George R.R., SF Encyclopedia. This is a helpful biographical sketch of Martin and his place in genre fiction.

Because of Martin's fame, there's been a lot of (well rehearsed) interviews about his background:

Interviews:

• Interview with George R.R. Martin
• George R.R. Martin Interview.
• Game Of Thrones - Interview with George R.R. Martin

I would also be remiss if I didn't point to two of Martin's stories, currently online at Lightspeed Magazine:

• The Way of Cross and Dragon
• ... For a Single Yesterday

The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Gnome Press

In my day job, I work with MBA students, and in the time that I've been doing that (and working at my regular job), I've gained a certain appreciation for how businesses function. When it comes to researching the column, looking at how a business functions has a certain appeal, especially since a major, unspoken element of SF History is really a sort of business history.

An excellent case in point is the rise and fall of a small, independent publisher, Gnome Press, which existed for just over a decade in the middle of the 20th Century. They published some of the genre's greatest authors, but ultimately failed, overtaken by their own inability to sell books and by changes in the marketplace. Gnome is an interesting business to study, because it carries with it some important lessons.

This post is quite a bit longer than the usual ones, but I had quite a bit of fun reading up on the history of this small press, and learning of the real implications it had for the genre as a whole.

Read The Meteoric Rise and Fall of Gnome Press over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources for Gnome Press

• I, Asimov: A Memoir, by Isaac Asimov. Asimov provides a short chapter on his own frustrating interactions with Gnome Press, as well as some good detail on its publisher, Martin Greenberg.
• The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History, by Jack L. Chalker and Mark Owings. This was an extremely detailed and in depth look at the history of Gnome, but also provides an excellent listing of the books which they published between 1948 and 1962.
• Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard, The Creator of Conan by L. Sprauge de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin. This text, while it has some problems, provides some solid details into de Camp's interactions with Gnome Press.
• Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era, by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. This was a whim buy at ICFA the other day, and nicely, it has a chapter on Gnome. Unfortunately, the book meanders quite a bit, and isn't written well. It's got a lot of very useful information on the history of Gnome and the people behind it, but it's organized poorly.
• A Pictorial History of Science Fiction, by David Kyle. It's always good to get information right from the source, and in this case, Kyle briefly talks about Gnome in his book.
• Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography, by Neil McAleer. Gnome is mentioned sparingly in this biography, but the points are helpful as reference points.
• The Way the Future Was: A Memoir, by Frederik Pohl. Pohl talks a little about Gnome in this book, chiefly noting the business opportunities that Gnome had, and squandered.
• Robert Silverberg - I've been e-mailing Silverberg for another project, and he kindly answered a couple of other questions that I had with this.

The Innumerable Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon

One of the stories that remains a favorite for me is Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God", which I tore through when I received a copy of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame way back in High School. Sturgeon became an author that I'd turn to pretty quickly whenever I picked up another anthology, and I've generally enjoyed all of the stories I've read from him.

Sturgeon is someone who's popped up a bit in the column already, and he's been someone I've been wanting to write about for a while now. He left an enormous footprint within the SF/F short fiction genre, and his work really ran counter to the largely conservative-leaning authors and stories that had been published by Campbell & imitators.

"Microcosmic God" is still one of my absolute favorite stories in the genre. If you haven't read it yet, go do so.

Go read The Innumerable Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

... are coming.

Sinking An Ally, 1940

The latest issue of Armchair General Magazine just arrived, and it includes an article of mine: Sinking An Ally, 1940. This is my fourth piece for them, and it's a little shorter than my usual ones, but it's no less interesting than those.

The topic this time is around the British attack on the French fleet anchored at Mers-el-Kébir. French? Weren't they allies? I came across a reference to the battle in a roundabout way, and did a bit of a double-take. Shortly after the fall of France, Britain had grave concerns about the status of the French Navy, now nominally in Vichy French (read: German) hands. The result was a combination of mistakes, mis-communications and egos that caused some real splinters for the Allies.

The article isn't online, but you can subscribe to the magazine here. It should be on newsstands at some point in the next month or two.

The Clients of Virginia Kidd

When Megan and I started dating, I made the trip from Vermont to Pennsylvania. It's around eight hours, covering four states. On one such trip, I decided I really didn't want to endure New Jersey, and took an early exit off of I-87 toward the alluring sign 'Delaware Water Gap'. It didn't take me much longer to cut through the two-lane road, perfect for driving a Mini Cooper on, and it took me through a quiet, quaint looking town of Milford. Since Megan and I have married, we make the trip frequently, crossing through Milford a couple of times a year. I like the town, even though I've never stopped.

While writing this column, I've come across the name 'Milford Method' a number of times, but it wasn't until I started reading up on Virginia Kidd that I realized that the Milford that I'd been reading about was the very same quiet town that I'd been driving through for the last five years! Milford, PA, sitting right on the intersection of New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, became a hub of activity for the science fiction world for decades, and is still home to the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency.

Virginia Kidd isn't necessarily a recognizable name to anyone from outside of the genre's walls: she worked behind the scenes, and appears between a number of pivotal figures within the genre. While authors get most of the credit, it's important to see the influence of major editors and agents can play in shaping the direction of the arts world.

Go read The Clients of Agent Virginia Kidd over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

• Transformations / Gateways to Forever, Mike Ashley. Kidd pops up briefly here and there in Ashley's books, mainly around her short fiction.
• The Futurians, Damon Knight. This book contains a wealth of information about Kidd on her life and influence within the Futurians group, and after.
• Science Fiction after 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars, Brooks Landon. This book has a good couple of notes on Kidd and her anthology, especially with how it fits into the feminist movements during the 1970s.
• Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril, by Judith Merril and Emily Pohl-Weary. Merril was close friends with Kidd, and there's some great letters and background information on their interactions.

There's a number of online sources that I found helpful:

• Kidd, Virginia, SF Encyclopedia. This provides a brief snapshot of Kidd.
• About Virginia Kidd, Ursula K. LeGuin. Le Guin's tribute to Kidd.
• Kidd, Virginia, Penn State. There's an interesting biographical page online by Penn State.
• Virginia Kidd, SFWA. SFWA's obituary for Kidd.

Also, many thanks to Ursula K. LeGuin for answering some questions for me about Virginia.

The Big Ideas of James Blish

The first Blish story I read was Surface Tension in Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology. While there's certainly some issues with the anthology, it's a solid collection of short fiction. Blish isn't an author I've read extensively, but I remember him popping up frequently in the various anthologies I read over the years.

We're getting to a transitional phase in the history of SF following the 'Golden Age' period smack-dab in the middle of the century. Now, we're starting to get into the early 1960s and beyond, which will have some interesting things happen.

Go read The Big Ideas of James Blish over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources

• Billion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss has some good things to say about Blish and his influence
• The Scribner Writer's Series: Science Fiction Writers, 2nd Edition, edited by Richard Bleiler. John Clute has a great section on Blish's works and career, particularly about his Cities in Flight and A Case of Conscience stories.
• Age of Wonders: Exploring The World of Science Fiction, David G. Hartwell. Hartwell mentions Blish a couple of times, with some good points about the political undertones to his stories.
• The Futurians: The Story of the Great Science Fiction "Family" of the 30's That Produced Today's Top SF Writers and Editors, Damon Knight. Blish shows up quite a bit in Knight's book (they were fairly close friends), and there's some good information about his career.
• Better To Have Loved, The Life of Judith Merrill, by Judith Merrill and Emily Pohl-Weary. Merrill and Blish didn't get along, to say the least, and there's a couple of good points about Blish's politics.
• The Way the Future Was: A Memoir, Frederik Pohl. Pohl bought Blish's first story, and has some good rememberences in his memoir.
• American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels, 1956-1958, edited by Gary K. Wolfe. I love the Library of America books. They're beautiful to physically behold, and they include some great little biographical thumbnails that are great as starting points for this column.

Arthur C. Clarke, Proselytizer Of Space

There were two authors I read extensively when I first started reading science fiction. The first was Isaac Asimov, because, well. Robots. Foundation. Reasons. The other was Arthur C. Clarke. The first story I really remember reading from him came from a thick anthology cultivated by Asimov, with one fantastic story by Clarke in it: Who's There? I then ran through a bunch of his books: 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010, 2061 and 3001 are the ones I checked out over and over again. Later, I dug into Rama and even later, Childhood's End.

A while ago, I had some grand idea of doing a parallel column for another website on the history of SF film, but quickly found that I didn't have the time or background to really get into it. I started writing an inaugural piece on - you guessed it - 2001: A Space Odyssey, before quickly realizing that I was really writing a column about the book.

There's a lot out on Clarke, more than most of the authors I typically write about. As a result, this column's quite a bit longer than what I usually put together.

There's a lot of tie-in novels out there, from all the major franchises, but typically, the books come as a result of the film, or there's a film based on the book. Far less common is when the book and film are created simultaneously, as is the case with Clarke's book. It's not his best work, but it's probably his most visible.

Go read Arthur C. Clarke, Proselytizer Of Space over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

Billion / Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss. Aldiss comes out of the British scene, and has some interesting and good notes on Clarke's works, although not as much on 2001 specifically. Science Fiction Writers: Second Edition, Richard Bleiler. This book has a good section on Clarke and his life, which works as a good thumbnail for his life and where everything fits. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke. I have two editions of this book: a special release from 2001, and an original Signet Paperback from 1968. The latter has a good forward with some helpful details. The former is also neat, and it's helpful to hold something one's writing about in one's hands. Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Biography, Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke wrote a short autobiography of his time at Astounding, which helped with some of his earlier moments as a writer. This is pretty limited, only going up to the 1950s, but it's a neat look at Astounding. The Lost Worlds of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke. Not merely content to write a book to have a movie based on it, Clarke also did a book on how the movie came about. This has some particularly good details on the writing process, repent with dates and neat details. (Asimov's 3 Laws in the movie? Think of how it could have changed!) Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future, Robert Crossley. Stapledon was a major influence on Clarke's works, and this book recounts his encounter with Clarke, who invited him to a BIS meeting. Arthur C. Clarke: The Authorized Biography, Neil McAleer. This book is a very good biography. Detailed and interesting, it provides a great amount of detail into how Clarke and Kubrick came up with the story. History of Science Fiction, Adam Roberts. Clarke makes an appropriate appearance here, and Roberts has a good discussion of his works.

The Fantastic Foresight of Katherine MacLean

Over the last year, I've been trying to write more about the women who wrote SF throughout its history. We've seen a bunch: Francis Stevens, Margaret St. Clair, Judith Merrill, Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, and Mary Shelley. While fewer in number than their male counterparts, they were all pretty influential. Recently, there's been quite a bit of talk over the role of women who write genre fiction, and a common argument that women simply don't write hard science fiction. Katherine MacLean counters this argument, adapting well to the world of magazine fiction from the 1950s through about the 1980s. For me, it was an introduction to a new author whom I have never come across before, and it was a delight to read up on some stories that really should be read more widely. 

Also, go wish her a happy birthday - she turns 89 today.

Go read The Fantastic Foresight of Katherine MacLean over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources

• Science Fiction Writers, 2nd Edition, edited by Richard Bleiler. Part of the Scribner Writers series, this volume has an excellent section on Katherine MacLean's life and works.
• Interview, Katherine MacLean. Katherine is the first subject which I've directly interviewed for this, and she provided quite a bit of detail for this piece.
• The Diploids and Other Flights of Fancy, Katherine MacLean. This is an excellent collection of 8 short stories - in particular, read Incommunicado.
• An Interview with Katherine MacLean, Darrell Schweitzer. This interview appeared in the New York Review of Science Fiction's July 2013 issue, and it's an excellent, in depth chat about her life and works, conducted at the 2012 ReaderCon in Burlington MA. It's worth a read.

The Influential Pulp Career of Francis Stevens

Over the course of writing this column for Kirkus Reviews, I've found that the early women authors writing in the genre were some of the most influential, producing some incredible stories over their careers. I've looked at quite a few who were incredibly influential: Margaret St. Clair, Judith Merrill, Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, and Mary Shelley. This week, we finally get to the woman who was considered one of the very first professionals in the pulp field: Gertrude Barrows Bennett, who wrote under the name Francis Stevens. She only wrote for a couple of years, but proved to be an incredible influence on the authors who followed her.

Go read The Influential Pulp Career of Francis Stevens over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965, Eric Leif Davin - Stevens' active publishing period falls before this time, but she does get some good mentions throughout this book, which poists that discrimination in the SF world wasn't entirely accurate on an industry level, which runs counter to current perceptions of SF's roots. It's an interesting theory, one which he breaks down quite a bit. Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the "Science Romance in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920, Sam Moskowitz - This is a fantastic hybrid of anthology and history. Moskowitz is to be handled with care, but in this instance, he seems to be mostly accurate (he does continue the idea that Augusust Swift was H.P. Lovecraft - he wasn't), but presents a nice history of the Munsey Magazines along with some solid biographical information on Stevens. American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub - Like all other Library of America volumes, this contains a short, updated biography, alongside her story Unseen-Unfeared. The Nightmare, and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy, edited by Francis Stevens, Gary Hoppenstand - You can read the introduction here, and it's an interesting read with some good biographical points about Bennett/Stevens and her life that don't show up in many other places. Stevens, Francis, SF Encyclopedia - There's a short entry on Stevens here, with some notes about her impact.

The Unauthorized Lord of the Rings

I bought my first copy of The Hobbit at a library sale in Quechee, VT when I was a kid. At the time, I remember noticing that the cover was graced with an 'The Authorized Edition', and it's been something that I've noticed over the years. A couple of months ago, I wrote a column on Ace Books and their double novels, and came across the reason for the words: Ace had published an unauthorized version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, citing a publishing loophole and sparking a publishing row that had some pretty profound implications on the fantasy publishing field.

There's the common narrative that the book was stolen outright, but digging a little deeper finds that there's quite a bit more to the story than Ace's edition.

Go read The Unauthorized Lord of the Rings over on Kirkus Reviews.

• Trillion Year Spree, Brian W. Aldiss - Aldiss recounts this incident briefly, and notes that the impact that it had on fantasy: that it generally heightened the profile of the fantasy trilogy.
• J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, Humphrey Carpenter - Carpenter's biography comes out of Tolkien's camp, and it's understandably tilted more towards Tolkien's views of how this happened, but it does provide some good details as to what his reactions and motivations where here.
• J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography, Wayne Hammond and Douglas A. Anderson - This book is a detailed look at the publication history of Tolkien's works, and they provide a good look at the Ace and Ballantine editions.
• The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien - My recent copy of Fellowship of the Ring (the hardcover boxed set with art from Alan Lee) contains a note that talks a bit about the text of the books, including (but not naming Ace) and their editions.
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien - My 1966 edition of the Hobbit features the 'Authorized Edition' and a note from Tolkien in the back of the book.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Tale of a Text, Pat Reynolds - This site has some good additional information on the incident.
• Betsy Wollheim: The Family Trade, Locus - Wollheim's daughter, Betsy, now the president of DAW books has a couple of good quotes on just how her father came to the decision to publish his own version of Lord of the Rings.
• Donald Wollheim, Betsy Wollheim - Betsy was an invaluable help here, pointing me to her father's side of the argument, which was largely overlooked. She provided me with a copy of her essay about her father that provided some very helpful insights into his character and personality.
• Eisen, Durwood & Co., Inc. v. Tolkien: This is the 1993 court ruling that ruled on the legality of Wollheim's actions many years after this happened.
• ISFDB Bibliography - The Internet Speculative Fiction Database provides a comprehensive listing of the releases for Tolkien's books, along with dates, which was very helpful.

Book Sale: History of SF to Jurassic London

I'm very happy to announce that I've sold the rights to a book on SF History to British publisher Jurassic London! Since April 2012, I've been writing a column on the subject for Kirkus Reviews, which has been a fantastic experience thus far. Since starting with them, my end goal has always been to collect the columns together into a larger work, and Jared has been a vocal and enthusiastic proponent for it. (Seriously, he calls it required reading!)

I'm pretty thrilled to have this land here. I'm a big fan of the books that Jurassic London has put out, especially their short fiction anthologies: The Lowest Heaven was a fantastic read, and I'm eagerly getting ready to read their latest, Book of the Dead.

This book isn't going to be a collection of the columns, but they are going to form a bit of the backbone. My aim here is to look at the history of the genre and its relationship with the readers and authors, but also the relationship between society and technology. In my work with Kirkus, I've been trying to emphasize some of the important, but lesser known authors and editors working within the genre, and I'm hoping that it'll be a nice addition to some of the other popular works on SF history.

This is going to be Jurassic London's first foray into original non-fiction, and while we don't have a title for this book yet, we are aiming for an early 2015 release. Read their release here.

Tom Swift and the Stratemeyer Syndicate

I never read the Tom Swift novels as a kid; I was always more obsessed with the Hardy Boys series. Over the years, I've read bits and pieces about Edward Stratemeyer, the man who was behind the long-running book series, as well as those of Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins (a favorite of my mother's), The Rover Boys and Tom Swift. He conceived of a character, put together a formula, and had a freelancer ghost write the novel before editing it. The process has always fascinated me, but when it came to looking into his background, an entire segment of early science fiction comes to light: the Dime Store novels, which created entire subgenres in their own right. More than that, they carried with them some real kernels of thematic material which have since propagated far into the future, which surprised and delighted me.

Another fun fact? TASER isn't a word: it's an acronym that stands for Tom A Swift's Electric Rifle.

Go read Tom Swift and the Stratemeyer Syndicate over on Kirkus Reviews.

Here's the sources that I used:

• Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, Brian Aldiss - Aldiss talks about the edisonade stories briefly, noting the larger movement and announcing it as the first real American SF.
• Science Fiction: The Early Years, Richard Bleiler - This book contains some biographical information on Victor Appleton (Howard R. Garis), as well as plot summaries of a number of the Tom Swift books.
• Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, James Gunn - Gunn provides some small bits about Tom Swift here and there, which helped me connect the dots, but what's more interesting is how the character and juvenile fiction is largely overlooked.
• Science Fiction after 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars, Brooks Landon - This was a very interesting book that talked quite a bit about the early SF, especially when it comes to Dime novels and where Tom Swift fits into all this.
• Cultural History of Literature: Science Fiction, Robert Luckhurst - Luckhurst has some good contextual information on Tom Swift, mainly backing up Aldiss and Landon's texts.
• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, Melanie Rehak - This was a particularly good read when it came to Stratemeyer himself, recounting his early life and how he came to become a major publisher.
• Edisonade, John Clute - this article on the SF Encyclopedia is a good summary of Edisonade and an overview of some of its history.

America's First Fantasist: Washington Irving

A couple of years ago, I came across an article about Washington Irving that noted his campaign against the piracy of his works during the 1700s. Somewhere else, I came across a mention of how he used startlingly modern methods to help promote his book - posting notices in newspapers, in a clever campaign that helped make his first book a resounding success and helped to cement his status as America's first professional writer.

I've long enjoyed Irving's New York stories,and I love his Dutch Catskills (and the feeling of driving through them in the fall), someone who really helped bring fantastic literature to America, and bridged the gap between some of the earlier works of Gothic fiction into a new era and a new world.

Irving is someone I've wanted to write about for a while now, and with the release of Fox's latest television show, Sleepy Hollow, the time seems right. The show itself is pretty ridiculous, but over the top fun. But beyond the timing of a popular television show, he's an author that should be remembered, studied and read widely.

Go read America's First Fantasist: Washington Irving over on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources:

The Original Knickerbocker: The life of Washington Irving, by Andrew Bernstein: I've had this book for a couple of years now, and I've read parts of it off and on. It's a dense, but very interesting biography on Irving, going into great detail on his life and work. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, volume 4, Frank N. Magill: This volume has a fantastic essay on Irving's short fiction and a good critical analysis of his work and how it fits into the fantastic canon. American Gothic Tales, edited by Joyce Carol Oates: This is a fantastic anthology of Gothic fiction that I've been picking away at over the years. This book contains Irving's famous 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow', a good read for this time of the year. American Fantastic Tales, edited by Peter Straub: I've long been a fan of the Library of America's collections, and this volume (the first of two) contains a short blurb on Irving's life, as well as a story of his, 'The Adventures of a German Student', which is quite an interesting read.

The Troubled History of Weird Tales Magazine

When the fall arrives, I get into the mood for darker fiction, particularly H.P. Lovecraft. I've written about Lovecraft before, but I didn't quite realize how important the magazine was, despite its general flaws in quality, to the genre. Authors such as C.L. Moore, and quite a few others passed through its pages, and it's clear that it's a publication that's just as important as Astounding or Amazing Stories.

Go read The Troubled History of Weird Tales Magazine over on Kirkus Reviews. Sources Used:

The Time Machines: The Story of science-fiction pulp magazines from the beginning to 1950, Mike Ashley: Ashley's fairly comprehensive history touches on Weird Tales, and provided some excellent details on the operations of the magazine, in context with the rest of the pulp magazine market. Lovecraft: A Look Behind the 'Cthulhu Mythos', Lin Carter: Carter's book talks about Lovecraft's interactions with the magazine, which provided some crucial details. The Creation of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of Magazine Science Fiction, Paul A. Carter: This book is another history of speculative fiction magazines, and it provided some good details and context on Weird Tales' place in the market. The Pulps, edited by Tony Goodstone: This is actually a neat anthology of stories from the pulp era, prefaced with a blurb about the magazines. Weird Tales has a whole section, along with stories from Tennessee Williams, Page Cooper, Frank Belknap Long Jr., Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Malcom Jameson, Virgil Finley, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. A Dreamer and a Visionary: H.P. Lovecraft in His Time, S. T. Josti: Another book on Lovecraft that shed some interesting details on Lovecraft's interactions with the magazine. The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer's Amazing Pulp Journey, Fred Nadis: This is a recent biography that talked a bit about Fransworth Wright, one of the major editors at the magazine. Conversations with the Weird Tales Circle, John Pelan: This astonishing book is a tome, with an impressive, excited survey of Weird Tales authors and editors (although interestingly, Dorothy McIlwraith is missing.) with a lot of primary source information. This was particularly helpful with Wright, but also with primary source impressions from the authors who wrote for the magazine. The Weird Tales Story, Robert E. Weinberg: This book is an exhuberant, editorialized history of the magazine, which helped put some of the major events into place.

The Fantastic Worlds of Lord Dunsany

It's fall, and I've been once again shifting from the usual topic of science fiction to horror and fantasy. Last year, I wrote about H.P. Lovecraft, and in my last column, I wrote about Robert E. Howard. As I've researched these guys, I continually came up with a common name: Lord Dunsany, and I've been looking to write about him and his works.

Dunsany's not an author that I'd come across before, and until I picked up a copy of The King of Elfland's Daughter I hadn't read or owned any of his works. Digging into his past helps to shine a real light on some of my own gaps in the fantasy side of my knowledge. He was an interesting, dramatic figure, intersecting with a number of other authors, and influencing a ton of others.

Go Read The Fantastic Worlds of Lord Dunsany on Kirkus Reviews.

Sources Used:

Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss: Aldiss points to Dunsany's influence briefly here. Lord Dunsany: A Biography, Mark Amory: This is a detailed, somewhat dense biography of the author, going into great depth on his life. Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers, L. Sprauge de Camp: I've had some issues with de Camp's work at history, but this book has a decent section on Dunsany, which served as a good guide. The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany: My copy of Dunsany's well known book is an interesting read, but for these purposes, it has a very good quote from Lovecraft about the author. Lord Dunsany, S.L. Joshi and Darrell Scheitzer: Comprehensive bibliography that was helpful for figuring out the timing of some of Dunsany's books and stories. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, Volumes 2 and 3, Frank Magill: These two volumes contain several detailed reviews of Dunsany's collections, novels and short fiction. Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany, Darrell Schweitzer: This book is a good literary analysis on Dunsany's works. The Hills of Far Away: A Guide to Fantasy, Diana Waggoner: Waggoner's book is a good overview of notable fantastic works, and this one served as a good guidepost.

Lord Dunsany also wrote a 3-volume autobiography, but sadly, I wasn't able to get a copy.